The invention relates to a weapon system, having a fire control system and an ammunition unit that can be fired from a weapon of the weapons systems.
For the ammunition identification in such weapon systems, it is known to store ammunition-specific data such as type of ammunition, batch number, date of manufacture, etc. directly in a data memory inside the ammunition (e.g., German published Patent Application No. DE 41 37 819 A1). Following the loading of the respective cartridge into the weapon chamber, these data are read automatically by means of a reading device and are transferred to the fire control system. By taking into account these data, as well as target-specific data, the fire control system subsequently generates directional signals for the aiming device of the weapon and, if necessary, control signals for activating an electronically programmable fuze, installed in the respective cartridge. For this purpose, the fuze has an electronic switching device with a microcontroller, arranged inside the cartridge.
The control signals for known weapon systems are transmitted from the fire control computer to the electronic switching device assigned to the cartridge fuze, either through inductive feeding or through voltage modulation of the supply voltage for the component. In both cases, there is no feedback to the fire control computer to indicate the actual (correct) transmitting of data.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a weapon system that allows a constant, secure monitoring in a simple manner of the link between the fire control computer and the structural components that can be triggered in the respective ammunition unit.